TODAY IN CONGRESS:
Your One Stop Shop For Learning What Our Congress Critters Are Up To!
YESTERDAY’S FIRST IMPEACHMENT HEARING:
3 Scholars & 1 Clown
BTW: Sorry for the late post, but sometimes my real life controls my DK life, and today is one of those times.
Here’s today’s schedule with the events I think may be the most interesting in bold. You can watch C-Span HERE. NOTE: Sometimes C-Span posts additional Congressional events not on my list, later in the day.
Today’s Events:
House —
10:00 am — House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Hearing on Communications and Technology (FCC Chair Ajit Pai and Fellow Commissioners Testify Before House Subcommittee. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Ajit Pai, along with his fellow commissioners, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology about FCC oversight.)
10:00 am — House Morning Session (General Speeches)
10:00 am — House Financial Services Committee Hearing about financial stability. (Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testified before the House Financial Services Committee about financial stability.)
10:00 am — House Session (The House may work on a bill by Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) that would define and ban illegal insider trading, “formally codifying the prohibition against insider trading, creating a clear, consistent standard for both courts and market participants to follow.”)
1:00 pm — House Armed Services subcommittee holds a Hearing on Privatized Military Housing (A House Armed Services subcommittee holds a hearing on privatized military housing with representatives from the housing companies.)
2:00 pm — House Committee Hearing on Homeownership (Brian Montgomery, the commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) testifies on federal housing policy and homeownership.)
Senate —
10:00 am — Senate Session (The Senate meets with work expected on judicial and executive nominations. Current government funding expires on December 20.)
10:00 am — Senate Banking Hearing on Oversight of Financial Regulators (The Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on oversight of financial regulators.)
Yesterday’s Votes:
House —
House —
1. Senate 151 (S. 151): Vote on Passage (as Amended) of S. 151 - TRACED Act (This bill implements a forfeiture penalty for violations (with or without intent) of the prohibition on certain robocalls. The bill also removes an annual reporting requirement for enforcement relating to unsolicited facsimile advertisements. The bill requires voice service providers to develop call authentication technologies. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shall promulgate rules establishing when a provider may block a voice call based on information provided by the call authentication framework, but also must establish a process to permit a calling party adversely affected by the framework to verify the authenticity of their calls. The FCC shall also initiate a rulemaking to help protect a subscriber from receiving unwanted calls or texts from a caller using an unauthenticated number. This bill requires the Department of Justice and the FCC to assemble an interagency working group to study and report to Congress on the enforcement of the prohibition of certain robocalls. Specifically, the working group will look into how to better enforce against robocalls by examining issues like the types of laws, policies, or constraints that could be inhibiting enforcement. The bill requires the FCC to initiate a proceeding to determine whether its policies regarding access to number resources could be modified to help reduce access to numbers by potential robocall violators.)
Democrats- 224 Yes 1 No 0 Present 8 Not Voting
Republicans- 193 Yes 2 No 0 Present 2 Not Voting
Independents- 0 Yes 1 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting
Totals- 417 Yes 3 No 0 Present 10 Not Voting
PASSED
Voting Details HERE.
Senate — No significant votes.
Comments:
Today’s Events – Well, my viewing pick for the day is the House Hearing with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, if for no other reason than its fun to watch him squirm.
Yesterday’s Votes — Not much exciting in the way of legislation yesterday, but I threw in this Anti-Robocall vote in the House just to show just about every Congress Critter HATES ROBOCALLS. That is all but 2 Republicans and Justin Amash who either are in the pocket of the robocall industry or they truly like getting these calls. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
COMMITTEE SUBPOENA WARS & IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS —
Today’s Impeachment/Subpoena HeadlineS:
House Judiciary Committee Held Its First Impeachment Hearing- Witness Score: Constitutional Scholars 3; Clown 0
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Pelosi Announces Drafting of Articles of Impeachment
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House Judiciary Committee To Hold Hearing To Review Impeachment Evidence
Details below under “COMMITTEE ACTIVITY”.
COMMITTEE ACTIVITY:
Introduction:
NOTE #1: Before I get started with today’s long list of subpoena and impeachment activity, let me say that I have decided to do away with posting the repetitive “Background” section here on each Committee activity, in an effort to shorten an already too long post. Instead each background section will include a link to my September 26 Diary containing the full backgrounds for those who need to get up to speed. I will keep editing that Diary as time goes on to keep the background up to date. Below, I will post only recent developments (stuff that happened the day before) and any new developments.
NOTE #2: Because of all the impeachment stuff happening all at once, these TIC diaries are getting way too long. So in a somewhat futile attempt to shorten things a bit, I have removed the Committee subpoenas that have been inactive for weeks. You can still find out about them in my September 26 Diary (CLICK HERE). Also, I will still keep a check on them and if something new happens in any of them, I will post it in future TIC diaries.
NOTE #3: Well my September 26 Diary containing the full backgrounds on each of the subpoena and impeachment activities has gotten too long, so the character limit has made it impossible for me to use this diary to post new background information. So starting November 22, I have posted background information from November 22 going forward in this November 22 Background #2 Diary and I will keep it updated until I run out of space again. I have put in a new link to the November 22 TIC for you to access it in each Committee Activity below. I have also kept the old link to the September 26 Diary so you can obtain the pre-November 22 background information. I hope this makes sense? If not, just send me any questions you have in the comment section.
Now on with the show. (New and Important stuff in bold)
House Judiciary Committee Barr Subpoena for Unredacted Mueller Report —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, awaiting Jan. 3 Appeals Court Hearing. Also, The Hill has an interesting (but somewhat GOP biased) article out about the pending Jan. 3 Hearings that I will cover under the “House Intelligence, & Judiciary Committees’ Impeachment” Heading below.
House Judiciary Committee McGahn Subpoena —
Background —Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, waiting for Jan. 3 Appeals Court Hearing. Also, The Hill has an interesting (but somewhat GOP biased) article out about the pending Jan. 3 Hearings that I will cover under the “House Intelligence, & Judiciary Committees’ Impeachment” Heading below.
House Oversight Committee Files Lawsuit to Enforce its Subpoenas to Wilbur Ross (Commerce Secretary) and AG William Barr —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, waiting on Court date for House subpoena lawsuit.
House Intelligence, & Judiciary Committees’ Impeachment Investigation —
NOTE #1: This used to be the “House Intelligence Committee’s Whistleblower Investigation”, but I have changed the heading to include the other committees involved and to allow for a broadening of the scope of the investigation.
Background —Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — Here are some recent developments:
- House Intelligence Committee Releases and Votes on it’s Impeachment Report — On Tuesday [Dec. 3], the House Intelligence Committee publicly released it’s 300—page Impeachment Report. According to this CNN Report:
The report is broken down into two sections, one on Ukraine and the other on obstruction of Congress — both of which are expected to be separate articles of impeachment.
Democrats alleged that the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden — was the "dramatic crescendo" of a months-long campaign driven by the President that involved a number of senior officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
"The President engaged in this course of conduct for the benefit of his own presidential reelection, to harm the election prospects of a political rival, and to influence our nation's upcoming presidential election to his advantage," the report says. "In doing so, the President placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election process, and endangered US national security."
Democrats charged that the White House's obstruction of their impeachment investigation was an "unprecedented campaign," detailing the numerous subpoenas that were defied over the two-month investigation.
"Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a stronger or more complete case of obstruction than that demonstrated by the President since the inquiry began," the report says.
But most significantly, the report reveals shocking new evidence:
The call logs also spur new questions, such as why Giuliani made several phone calls to the Office of Management and Budget and the White House in April, as the campaign against Yovanovitch was in full swing.
Although the call logs reveal whose phones sent/received the calls and now long they lasted, they don’t provide what was said during each call. Besides Giuliani, the call logs show Lev Parnas (Giuliani’s Associate) and Devin Nunes (the worried man in the opening photo) were involved in numerous calls with Giuliani and other co-conspirators. With regard to Nunes:
Asked about Nunes' involvement, Schiff said: "There's a lot more to learn about that and I don't want to state that that is an unequivocal fact, but the allegations are deeply concerning."
BTW, Schiff also said that Nunes was fully aware of these call logs which implicate him in the plot as he sat in there in the Hearings.
The report also reveals that Lev Parnas is still providing documents to the Committee in response to his subpoena, which Schiff said the Committee is evaluating. Parnas is pretty much begging to cooperate with the Committee and Schiff has said that the Committee is in negotiations with Parnas’ lawyers and the SDNY to possibly get Parnas to testify before the Committee.
Most significantly, Schiff made clear that the Intelligence Committee’s investigation is still ongoing and if new significant evidence is uncovered, they will issue a supplemental report to the Judiciary Committee.
As expected, on Tuesday evening the Committee voted along Party lines to send their report onto the Judiciary Committee. You can read the entire report HERE.
- Judiciary Committee Holds First Impeachment Hearing — The Judiciary Committee will hold it’s first Impeachment Hearing today which will focus on what constitutes and Impeachable offense. As noted above, Democrats will call Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor, Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, while Republicans will call Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about the Trump impeachment inquiry, as their witness. While having Constitutional Scholars go over what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution may seem somewhat dull and dry to some, its important to pay attention to the questions being asked to see where the Committee might be heading, as discussed in this PBS Story:
House Democrats still have to decide whether to focus exclusively on Ukraine, or go after Trump on a broader range of issues — a dilemma Democrats have struggled with since formally launching the impeachment inquiry in September.
Should Democrats decide to broaden their case against Trump, they’d likely focus on Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and ties to the Trump campaign. In his final report, Mueller did not draw a conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice. But Mueller pointed out ten instances where there was evidence the president or his associates tried to interfere with the probe.
If Democrats focus on the special counsel probe Wednesday, it could signal they are leaning towards adding obstruction of justice from that investigation to the list of articles of impeachment.
So how will Nadler Handle the Disruptive Republican Clowns on his Committee? We have this from POLITICO:
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler had a blunt message as he privately addressed Democrats the day before his panel assumes a starring role in the impeachment inquiry.
“I’m not going to take any shit,” Nadler said in a closed-door prep session Tuesday morning — a rare cuss word from the lawyerly Manhattan Democrat that prompted some lawmakers to sit up in their chairs, according to multiple people in the room.
Nadler’s warning shot referred to likely GOP antics to try to undermine the first impeachment hearing in the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
New Developments — As usual, the BREAKING Impeachment News just keeps BREAKING:
- House Judiciary Committee Wraps Up First Impeachment Hearing With 3 Scholars and A Clown for Witnesses — By now you have seen or read about Wednesday’s Hearing, so I will try not to bore you with a long write up. I will try to keep it brief.
In general, with regard to process, I thought Nadler did a fair job of keeping the GOP Clown Show from disrupting the Haering, although he did appear in decisive at times. With regard to substance, the Democrats and their 3 witnesses did a good job of establishing Trump’s actions as Impeachment Level offenses, and the Republicans and their witness did a lot of shouting into the mic and embarrassing themselves. My only negative takeaway was that there wasn’t a lot in the Democrat’s questions and the Witnesses responses that suggested a broadening of the impeachment proceedings beyond Trump’s Ukraine crimes (more on that topic later down the page). But in today’s “soundbite” world, its all about the highlights. So here are mine (and maybe yours, too).
The star of the Hearing was of course Constitutional Scholar and Law Professor Pamela Karlan who put GOP Representative Doug Collins (a.k.a GOP A’Hole) in his place right off the bat. This is how it went down according to this CNN Recap:
In Collins' opening statement, he repeatedly took a dismissive tone toward the quartet of law professors sitting before him. "We got law professors here," he joked at the end of his opening statement. "What a start of a party." One of the four -- Stanford Law professor Pam Karlan -- took considerable umbrage at Collins' dismissals.
"Everything I know about our Constitution and its values and my review of the evidentiary record -- and here Mr. Collins, I would like to say to you, sir [the “Sir” being Collins], that I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing because I would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts, so I'm insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don't care about those facts," Karlan scolded the Georgia Republican.
Collins looked as though he wanted to say something, but didn't interrupt Karlan.
So add Karlan to the list of strong women witnesses (Marie Yovanovitch & Fiona Hill) who are not afraid to take on the Condescending GOP Male, “Good Old Boys” Gang. Why aren’t there more men on the Democrats side with the guts to speak TRUTH TO Republican POWER as these women have? You Go Girls!
Also, while we are discussing Karlan’s testimony there has been a lot of Hoopla over the following:
As the afternoon session began, Karlan was asked by one of the Democratic committee members to elucidate the differences between a king and a president -- as a way to more broadly explain why the founding fathers included the impeachment clause in the Constitution.
She responded this way: "The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while the President can name his son Barron, he can't make him a baron."
Later, Karlan apologized. "I want to apologize for what I said earlier about the President's son," she said. "It was wrong of me to do that. I wish the President would apologize, for the things he's done that's wrong, but I do regret having said that."
Republicans have already seized on Karlan's comment. Vice President Mike Pence called it a "new low" in the impeachment hearings.
Let’s be clear, there was absolutely nothing in Karlan’s statement that was in any way derogatory about Trump’s youngest son. It was just a harmless, and very clever I might add, illustrative analogy. No apologies should have been asked for or given.
But here’s the Democrat’s Gem of the day:
While Karlan was the shining star of the day for Democrats, it was University of North Carolina Law School professor Michael Gerhardt who offered up what I believe will be the most regularly quoted line of the day.
"If what we're talking about isn't impeachable, then nothing is impeachable," said Gerhardt, referencing what he believed to be the clear impeachable conduct of bribery and obstruction detailed in the
report released Tuesday by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.
Time to Drop The Mic!
- Pelosi Announces Full Steam Ahead With Drafting Articles of Impeachment — Since our own Mark Sumner has already posted an excellent FP Story on this newest development, I won’t waste my time doing my own write up. So here are a few excerpts courtesy of Mark:
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday morning to announce next steps in the impeachment of Donald J. Trump.
The brief statement makes it clear that there are not going to be further lengthy hearings in the House; instead, articles will be drawn up for a vote before the full House. It appears that the House will complete the business of impeaching Trump before the Christmas break.
You can read Pelosi’s full statement at the end of Mark’s FP Story.
MY SHORT COMMENTARY — Many of you have already heard me rant about the apparent speed and narrowness of this impeachment process, so I won’t spend a lot of keystrokes here. For those who haven’t, please feel free to read my previous commentaries on the topic HERE and HERE. So I won’t go into repeat myself now. Also, I would encourage you to read This Diary by Liberal Thinking which argues for a broad scope of impeachment articles. But it’s now becoming even more clear that Pelosi intends to have a full House vote on Articles of Impeachment before the Christmas break, and there is little if anything indicating that the Articles will be contain anything other than Ukraine related Trump crimes. Although, I am always reluctant to question Pelosi’s wisdom on such matters, because her track record of negotiating the dicey course of Congressional politics impeccable, I just don’t see any positives in getting a narrow scoped impeachment shuffled off to the Senate so quickly, but I do see some negatives. Once this is handed off to the Senate, we (House Dems.) lose all control over when the trial will occur and very little control over our ability to enter any new evidence that may come to light after the Articles are presented to the Senate. I get the argument that Trump’s obstruction has several important witnesses and documents tied up in the Courts and we certainly can’t wait months and months for all the Court decisions to be handed down by SCOTUS / Lower Courts. But in some cases we are potentially not talking about months, we are talking about a few weeks/days. For instance, as discussed in this story from The Hill, there are 2 cases which could yield critical impeachment evidence that will have a Hearing in Federal Appellate Court on January 3. One is about Congressional access to the Mueller Investigation Grand Jury documents, and the other involves the subpoena for documents and testimony from Don McGahn. Granted these may get appealed to SCOTUS, but why not wait a few weeks to see if they do? Also, we have the Kupperman case which goes to DC Circuit Court on December 10 that will likely go in favor of Congress and, if Bolton is true to his word, both Kipperman and Bolton could agree to testify before the end of the year. And then we have Lev Parnas who is already funneling new documentary evidence to the Intelligence Committee and is eager to take the stand if it will lessen his legal woes. What if we get some or all of this new damning evidence before the end of January and are unable to introduce into the Senate Trial? What Then? I’m sorry, but with all due respect to the Speaker, I see ways that this rush to complete the House side of the impeachment process could go terribly wrong.
- House Judiciary Committee to Hold Monday [Dec. 9] Hearing to Review Impeachment Evidence — Once again Mark Sumner has this great FP Post, so I don’t have to do my own write up. Here’s a little excerpt courtesy of Mark:
The House Judiciary Committee has announced that its next impeachment hearing will be Monday. In a statement that followed soon after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House will draft formal articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, the committee said the Monday hearing's purpose will be to "receive presentations from counsels to the [Intelligence and Judiciary Committees."
I refuse to get my hopes up, but what evidence would Judiciary Committee Attorneys be presenting since they have presumably not done much if any work on the Ukraine related investigation. Could it be findings of Trump Obstruction in the Mueller Report? Fingers crossed.
House Financial Services Committee and House Intelligence Committee Deutsche Bank and Capital One Subpoenas (Trump’s Banking Records) —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — Well, the House’s Deutsche Bank and Capital One Subpoenas of Trump’s financial records is back in the news, so it’s been added back to the TIC list. And its another legal loss for Trump in his bid to keep his financial past a secret. According to this POLITICO Report:
President Donald Trump suffered another loss Tuesday in his effort to block House Democrats from obtaining his financial records, a matter that is now likely to make its way to the Supreme Court.
A federal appeals court in New York ruled 2-1 that Deutsche Bank and Capital One should comply with subpoenas from the House Financial Services and House Intelligence committees seeking information about Trump’s finances, upholding a decision by a federal court in May.
The subpoenas seek documents including tax returns, evidence of suspicious activity and, in the case of Deutsche Bank, any internal communications regarding Trump and his ties to foreign individuals.
Trump now has seven days to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court, and the 2nd Circuit is ordering a process that will allow the president to object to specific items, like checks, that may be particularly personal and explain why those should be excluded.
Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump, said the president is considering an appeal.
With each Judicial win the House moves closer and closer to obtaining Trump’s financial history which is sure to be criminal based on the lengths Trump is going to to hide his finances.
New Developments — None.
House Ways & Means Committee & Manhattan DA Subpoenas (Trump’s Tax Returns) —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. BTW — I know this gets confusing but there are really three (3) cases going on aimed at Trump’s tax returns. One is the case brought by the House Committee to get the IRS to turn over Trump’s taxes as required BY LAW. The second is the case brought by Trump against the Manhattan DA to block the DA’s subpoena of Mazars, Trump’s former accounting firm, to provide the DA with Trump’s tax returns as a part of a State criminal investigation. The third is a case brought by Trump against NYS to block his State tax returns from being turned over to Congress in accordance with a recently passed NYS Law. I hope this helps keep things straight!
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, waiting for SCOTUS to decide if they will hear 2 of Trump’s tax cases.